Page 92 - women-in-love

the soft, rather degenerate face of the young man. Its very
softness was an attraction; it was a soft, warm, corrupt na-
ture, into which one might plunge with gratification.
‘But he has no hold over you, has he?’ Gerald asked.
‘You see he MADE me go and live with him, when I
didn’t want to,’ she replied. ‘He came and cried to me, tears,
you never saw so many, saying HE COULDN’T bear it un-
less I went back to him. And he wouldn’t go away, he would
have stayed for ever. He made me go back. Then every time
he behaves in this fashion. And now I’m going to have a
baby, he wants to give me a hundred pounds and send me
into the country, so that he would never see me nor hear of
me again. But I’m not going to do it, after—‘
A queer look came over Gerald’s face.
‘Are you going to have a child?’ he asked incredulous. It
seemed, to look at her, impossible, she was so young and so
far in spirit from any child-bearing.
She looked full into his face, and her dark, inchoate eyes
had now a furtive look, and a look of a knowledge of evil,
dark and indomitable. A flame ran secretly to his heart.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Isn’t it beastly?’
‘Don’t you want it?’ he asked.
‘I don’t,’ she replied emphatically.
‘But—‘ he said, ‘how long have you known?’
‘Ten weeks,’ she said.
All the time she kept her dark, inchoate eyes full upon
him. He remained silent, thinking. Then, switching off and
becoming cold, he asked, in a voice full of considerate kind-
ness:

92 Women in Love